This year first months of this year there have been serveral new e-books appearing. Though e-books have been around since 2008, this is the first time we actually have a whole range of options. They are said to change the world in the next decade. Here we have the details of the 2 main competitors. A school is considering buying one of these two to be used as textbooks for students.

IPAD.jpg
KINDLE.jpg


q1 bout cameras: a way to share pics -mobile phones-
  • Define the terms e-book , PDF , MP3 and display

1. E-book is described as an electronic device which can download a book which is uploaded to the web in order for people to read it using a screen.
2. MP3 is a type of file format wich is relatively standard. This type of file format is commonly used for storing compressed audio data. When you change the format of a CD to a mp3(using a compression algorithm), its smaller but the quality of the sound is almost the same.
3.PDF- A format developed by Adobe, it allows digital files to be exchanged through programs with independent hardware and operating systems. It is usually used to save big documents, usually to be stored in a computer. (e.g. a portfolio or book). Keeps original document intact.
4.Display- An output device in which information is shown visually. It is the screen of a device(e.g. cellphone, computer, e-book, ipad, etc.), which shows an image, file, application and allows the user to observe it. The resolution of each display device depends on the number of distinct pixels in each space/dimension that can be showed in the display.


  • Describe one way in which you can convert normal books into e-books and one way to convert radio music into digital music

1. Normal books could be scanned (if the original file is not stored in a computer yet) and then converted into a PDF file (or whatever format that the e-book is using).
2. One way to do it is to record the analog music from the radio with an external audio device, then it is recorded in WAV format. Other way is to record the music from the radio and then use the webpage called zamzar.com to convert the desired file to a useful format such as mp3.



  • Discuss which of the two e-books would be the best one for a teacher who already has a laptop and a computer at home.

The kindle is speciffically used for books and in the case of the teacher who has already a laptop and a computer, I don't think he/she will be looking for a device with the capacities of an e-book that also does the same as her/his computer, which could be the case of the Ipad. Also, a kindle has a bigger catalogue of books available both free or with a relatively lower price than the iPad. The kindle is more reliable because it is older and has been tried out more times than the iPad, which, as it is relatively new, both users and developers may find unexpected problems during the usage( which could lead to reliability issues).
On the other hand the Ipad has a durable battery and you are able to download the applications which are available for the ipod touch and the iPhone.If the teacher would want to watch videos on the Ipad , it has a high definition.


  • Evaluate which e-book should the school consider buying, or if they shouldn't buy them at all.
In the case of the kindle, it should be useful for reading books without the necessity to have tons of paper books , also the students would be able to see the files they have written and saved in their USB or change it because it has an USB port and finally the device would cost a fairly amount of money for the school. For the Ipad, it would be awesome that the children experience the opportunity to work with a device which show the books in color, and apart from that use other applications like a computer. In the other hand, the Ipad has two major problems which could be that, in the case of wanting to upload a file which is saved in their USB drive, they wouldn't be able to transfer the information to the Ipad because the Ipad doesn't have USB ports, apart from that, it can be said that the students would not be able to download many books because the catalogue of books available is relatively short. The school should buy the kindle if they are just interested in the "reading process", but if they want their children to experience other applications too, they should buy the iPAD.

Some advantages of buying e-books for the school would be that the school would not have to spend a lot of money on buying books because they would be able to download it from the internet, Another advantage of the ebooks is that you can search a word you are interested in the lecture, and you will be automatically transferred to the parragraphs on the book that contain that word you are looking for. That would allow the students to find the information they are looking for easier. Finally, you are able to bookmark, highlight and to annotate on the book wherever you want to and you can search for them later.
On the other hand, the e-books also have some disadvantages which are that maybe you download an .exe format e-book and if the students have Macs they ould not be able to open them , also the students may be tired and could have headaches because of reading on a screen. Apart from that if the e-book crashes then you would lose all the annotations done there.

I would highly recommend that the school should buy e-books due to the fact that they could allow the students to do a lot of things described before and could help them to search for information easier than with a nomal book.